Help, Lug Nuts Came Loose While Driving

[AlfaNeely@domain.elided]

       The wheels will loosen slightly after driving.  It seems no matter how 
carefully you seat the lug nuts, not all four are exactly centered in their 
taper.  Therefore, I ALWAYS retorque my wheels after a couple of miles of 
driving.
       And like the recent warm up trend, I do not drive in a spirited manner 
until after the wheels have been retorqued.
       I ALWAYS use a torque wrench to get them uniformly tight.  The actual 
tightness is not as important, in my experience, as even tightness.  I 
normally torque Alfa mags from 65 to 80 foot pounds.
       I also grease the lug bolts.  That prevents rust, which makes the lugs 
come loose easier the next time.  It also allows the torque settings to be 
more even.

       On my race car, I retorque the wheels after every race.  It seems that 
after a heat cycle, at least one or two of the 16 lug nuts will take a bit of 
a turn to return to the original torque setting.

Ciao,
Russ Neely
Oklahoma City



In a message dated 09/27/2002 12:38:32 AM Central Daylight Time, 
owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:


> Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 01:08:13 -0400
> From: Dick Stachowiak <stachowiak@domain.elided>
> Subject: Help, Lug Nuts Came Loose While Driving
> 
> I just installed a set of refinished Turbina's with new Dunlop Sport
> A2's on my Spider tonight. The wheels were in good shape, and were
> painted just to spruce them up.  I took it out for a test drive and
> after about 5 miles of spirited driving I started getting a pretty
> significant vibration.  I pulled over to find that the lug nuts on the
> drivers front wheel had come loose.  This is a 71 Spider that has late
> style long wheel studs.  I had installed new lug nuts that I got from
> NAPA, and although I didn't use a torque wrench to tighten them,
> shouldn't have come loose.  I've been putting wheels on for 35  years
> and never had one come loose till now.  So my question is what
> happened?  Could the Turbina's require a special taper on the lug nut?
> Should they require a higher torque?  I'm getting the car ready for the
> central New York Italian Car Cruise this weekend and either need to get
> this resolved, or I'm going to have to put the original steel wheels
> with crappy old tires on before my wife will get back in the car.  Also
> any recommendations for tire pressure for 195-65-14 Sport A2's?
> 
> Dick Stachowiak
> 
> 71 Spider
> 71 GTV
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